A stunning new report claims that undercover agents and informants with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may have played a significant role in instigating an alleged plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan, according to the Daily Caller.
The report, originally published by BuzzFeed, says that the defense counsel for most of the accused plotters plan to argue that their clients were “induced or persuaded” into concocting the plot by the undercover agents. Of the 14 who have been arrested and charged in the alleged scheme to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.), 13 have pleaded “not guilty.”
The defense says that the undercover agents, in their efforts to investigate alleged “extremism,” went out of their way to make the defendants start planning it in the first place, and that without the involvement of the undercover agents, there never would have been such plans. One of the defendants has explicitly accused the FBI of entrapment and says that he plans to fight his charges every step of the way.
One such example is an informant for the FBI from Wisconsin, who planned multiple meet-ups for right-wing militia members, and even went so far as to fully cover lodging and food to entice them to come. It was at these meetings, according to the report, where the very first mentions of the alleged plot took place. Another informant, a man named Dan, also paid for transportation costs to and from key meetings, and repeatedly encouraged the accused ringleader to go through with the planning process when he occasionally had doubts. After the group was arrested, the FBI rewarded Dan with $24,000 and a new car.
Of the 14 accused men, eight face state charges while the remaining six face federal charges for their roles in the alleged plot. The uncovering of the alleged plot and the mass arrest last year came at the height of widespread dissatisfaction with Governor Whitmer’s performance in Michigan. At the peak of the nationwide lockdowns due to the coronavirus, Whitmer had imposed some of the strictest measures in the entire nation, including the shutdown of all businesses and harsh mask mandates, enforced by the threat of fines or arrest for disobeying. There were frequent protests of Whitmer in the state capital of Lansing, and several of Whitmer’s actions were ultimately ruled unconstitutional by various courts.